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Web Usage-Based Billing On Its Way

In my area, the only real option is Charter. Their pricing plan basically forces you to the higher plans. They have a 1 Mb plan for like $19.99 a month, then they jump to 8Mb for $30 then 16Mb for $35.

I don't think I would vote on this, but the idea that one provider provides everyone the exact same connection speed, then just charges based on usage, is somewhat appealing.
 
in canada , most of the ISP limit us to 60gb up and down. Thats why i cant use netflix and some other data based service.
 
I'm just curious, is it justified for them to increase prices by charging for individual usage? It seems like they don't have thin margins or anything like that to need to raise prices, but I want to make sure.
 
Also, I think that if free market capitalism were a reality in America and one or two Internet providers didn't service each region, things like this would not happen. With something that is a borderline basic necessity like the Internet, people will simply pay more rather than make the life-changing decision of cutting Internet access. I feel like they're abusing these two above facts for their own benefit, and average Americans are being short-changed yet again.
 
I wouldn't read too much into this just yet. Cable companies are still doing very well with charging for internet access and or cable. Intel, Microsoft and Apple are also major major players who have many friends in the business. And they all would be hurt hugely if something like this actually in fact did happen to where consumers were priced out of those business models. There is plenty of money to go around for everyone. I am sure they will find ways to be as transparent as possible to the consumer and not over imposing as to give off the nasty stench of of greed. They could raise prices $10 a month more on everyone for these overages and rake in billions more. That's something we can all live with. They last thing they want is a bunch of geeky 1% fuckers camping out in parks over something like these. I mean, who wants to pick all that trash they would leave behind, I mean, tons and tons of pokeman cards, magic the gathering cards, candy wrappers and discarded yoohoo chocolate drink containers. One bit of trash they wouldn't have to worry about cleaning up at least would be used condoms.
 
Skip_ray said:
Rofl, I think if they ever felt threatened that'd just say, Hey Gov, we are too big to fail, how about you hook us up with free tax payers money? Otherwise dinosaurs will walk the earth, plants will eat people, and the West Coast will be without internet for a week.
Click to expand...

What would be hilarious is if we agreed with them and said:
"Yes, you're absolutely right, you are too big to fail, we should nationalize you as a public resource since you are/were clearly incapable of managing yourselves despite your preeminent position in your industry."
 
Kueller said:
What would be hilarious is if we agreed with them and said:
"Yes, you're absolutely right, you are too big to fail, we should nationalize you as a public resource since you are/were clearly incapable of managing yourselves despite your preeminent position in your industry."
Click to expand...

This.

With how much influence big business has on government policies right now, it would be doomed to failure to have a nationalized ISP. But if lobbyists and interest groups didn't meddle and the most populous urban centers received this nationalized, cheap, effective Internet service, they'd have to become competitive, or they'd go bust. Just like the single payer system, they (corporate interests) don't want it to happen because they wouldn't be able to compete.
 
And why wouldn't they? They have almost complete control over it. There is rarely any competition where they are at...
 
Steve said:
Remember when the cable companies were putting the 250GB caps in place, they were saying that the 1% of the data hogs were using all the bandwidth while everyone else never comes lose to using 250GB.

Right?

Well, if they move to usage based billing that means the majority will pay less while the 1% of the data hogs will pay more. That's a shit business model.

So either

A.) they were lying then.
B.) they are lying now

C.) all of the above.
Click to expand...

Pretty much. Except what it'll be is, users now will pay the current (read: ridiculous) price as a "base fee", while "top users" will be forced to pay even more exorbitant prices because they use more.

It is totally a monopoly and it's ridiculous that the government has not stepped in yet, considering how they were all up on Microsoft about it yet they do nothing here... :rolleyes:
 
The American public has had enough, the days of being easy pushovers is history. This will backfire so hard in their face, it will be the beginning of the end for them if they were to go thru with this, mark my words.
 
>GSXR<mrbusa said:
these guys crack me up. people like me that grew up without internet are the majority of people online, whether it being as an end user or as a parent monetarily supplying the household with the connection. in between the vicious viruses and malware, popups, ad banners, security codes that i can barely read, and constant maintenance to keep private information private, ive about had it.
then if you are a multi player online gamer its a nightmare. take codmw3 for instance. i have 25mbs down and 12mbs up and because of p2p gaming i am forced to play with some third world clown on third world internet, constantly forcing the game to switch from host to host.
the internet sucks now......oh yeah, cloud computing......lol......i think a bunch of women run the internet.
Click to expand...

If women ran the internet we wouldn't have these problems.
 
Ticker305 said:
The Darknet Project would take off if this were to happen.
Click to expand...

I can't believe I've never heard about this before, or that reddit has an entire section dedicated to it.

Wow... fascinating stuff.
 
Ticker305 said:
The American public has had enough, the days of being easy pushovers is history. This will backfire so hard in their face, it will be the beginning of the end for them if they were to go thru with this, mark my words.
Click to expand...

Or we will just roll over and take it, like we did with the cellphone carriers.

Honestly, the only solution to this is investing in municipal, community-owned broadband providers. I live in a small town and I pay ~$1.4/Mb (40/20Mbps for around $55) for fiber to the local coop. No contract, service is amazing and they're always improving their network.

Another option is LightSquared and other similar, wholesale services.
 
I'm about to sign up for comcast (data capped at 250GB) only because, and ONLY BECAUSE, t-mob is very lame and changed my 2+ year old FULL UNLIMITED (still says unlimited without stars or anything behind it) to 5GB but then 8kb/sec (AOL speeds) after 5.1GB+...... so I am forced after 2 weeks of normal web use and video to AOL speeds, completely bullshit and worst things of all:

THIS MAKE AMERICA LESS INNOVATIVE!

So while South Korea and Japan have FASTER AND MORE RELIABLE INTERNET COMPANIES THAT ARE NOT SO GREEDY, we are being forced to use less internet, limiting our potential in technology (the only thing we are supposedly ahead of in, technology creation and innovations)

GO GO AMERICAN CORPORATE GREED AND MONOPOLIES!!!!!

And to think.... these are the only companies I CAN FUCKING USE, besides satellite of course, buts thats $150+ a month and just as slow as AOL at times!

Fucking incredible bullshit!
 
I will tell you this... I will stop going to websites that have advertisements on their websites!!!
I'm not going to pay per Gb to have them advertise to me.
 
Rickj35 said:
I will tell you this... I will stop going to websites that have advertisements on their websites!!!
I'm not going to pay per Gb to have them advertise to me.
Click to expand...

This was my inital concern, all these flash based and even large picture adds will build up. As it stands I allow all my normal sites(the [H] esepcially :D ) through the ad block because I realize how it keeps them going. Iff this happened however, that allow list would become much smaller!
 
I've always assumed that Canada is a testing grounds for large corporations to 'test the waters' on things like this (our internet caps, our extremely tiny cell limits and extremely gross overpriced fees if we go over, etc) and if they can get it to fly then they attempt to implement it in the US. As mentioned already we 'defeated' a CRTC (Canuck FTC) motion that would force independents (Teksavy) that lease bandwidth off a monopoly (Bell) that to basically pay whatever the big guy charged them, which would ruin them as the small guy's selling point is basically cheap unlimited DSL. This happened due to public outcry and a very large petition.

Also lately I've noticed at least with Cogeco Cable that they have increased the monthly limit and even redid their tiers so it's now a tad less a month...although in the fine print they used to charge you so much for going over your bandwidth limit to a point, now they have no overusage cap, basically trading something nice (hey guise more bandwidth a month for $7 less woohoo!) for something sneaky (oh man I watched a marathon of crap on Netflix and the overuse cap didn't stop at $50...)

Fight it guys, because while large limits are perfectly livable for the odd Steam purchase and WoWing/gaming this basically stops you from using Netflix and Hulu all the time so you can just buy back all of those special channel packages from your cable company that you dropped because you discovered Netflix. Also anybody noticed this is coming shortly after Youtube announced upcoming 'channels' of defecated programming?
 
Yup, Canada was a testing ground, now the US will start getting the same treatment slowly as different ISPs deploy abu$ive usage rates at different speeds depending on their markets.

Usage based billing was actually only partially defeated in Canada. The major ISPs are presently busy writing up new pricing structures based on unlimited internet factoring in the "extremely" high cost of the 1% high usage spread across everyone's unlimited prices. Especially the high bandwidth usage of small ISP providers which are forced to lease their bandwidth, now have to provide expected usage. People will be in for another shock when those will get presented these prices as a "fair" compromise. The major ISPs won't be losing money, quite the opposite. They are quite happy with this new arrangement.

Don't know for sure, but me thinks it will make Canada's sky high cell phone data plans prices (compared to the rest of the world) look cheap.
 
Steve said:
Remember when the cable companies were putting the 250GB caps in place, they were saying that the 1% of the data hogs were using all the bandwidth while everyone else never comes lose to using 250GB.

Right?

Well, if they move to usage based billing that means the majority will pay less while the 1% of the data hogs will pay more. That's a shit business model.

So either

A.) they were lying then.
B.) they are lying now

C.) all of the above.
Click to expand...

Or they are anticipating streaming video services to completely dominate in the future, and expecting that in the future, bandwidth demands are going to be much higher...

Don't get me wrong, I don't put it above these slimy ISP creeps to publish bold faced lies, but they may actually not be doing so in this case.
 
While I think companies are going to push for usage-based billing, this is a really crap article. It's just some idiot analyst making the usual useless analyst predictions in reaction to something the FCC chairman said. It also does a poor job of distinguishing between actual usage-based billing (an access fee plus a per GB fee) and data caps with overage fees (which are happening now), so it just sounds like he's "predicting" something that's already happening.
 
The solution is to allow multiple ISPs into any given area. Then they would compete on price. As it is now, you likely have a cable option, a DSL option, and the shitty satellite option. Cable has no reason to be cheap or compete since it's the boss on your block.
 
Skip_ray said:
Starting to think that the only thing that the USA beats the rest of the world at is GREED!
Click to expand...

QFT!

fattypants said:
We need to start threatening them with municipal broadband. The telecoms fear it and attack it because it would force them to actually start competing in a free market.
Click to expand...


How would someone go about doing this. I live in a community of about 7,000 peeps, and I think I can pull this one off. All we got is ATT and Cox, and we all hate them!
 
As shitty as it is, I think it'd be somewhat refreshing if the cable companies would just come out and say it

"We have absolutely no problems running things the way they are, but we see how wireless carriers are making money hand over fist using this model, and we just want to make a whole lot more money without having to spend any more money on our side"
 
nobody_here said:
Right now is a terrible time to try to force price hikes down consumers throats. Look at the reaction from an $8 Netflix increase and a $5 BoA debit card charge.......now imagine if the cable industry came out and said, everyone's broadband is going up $10/mo and we are cutting the cap in half as well......

I don't see this happening.
Click to expand...

If you didn't like the Netflix price increase, most people had several other choices; Redbox, Blockbuster, Amazon, or just buying the DVDs.

If you didn't like $5 charge from BofA, there are plently of other banks/credit unions.

Most people are lucky if they have even 1 other option for broadband access.
If I decide Cox is too expensive or limited, I only have one other choice: a low-speed DSL connection, that would be too slow for streaming and HD video.
I could just use my phone, but it only has a 2GB cap.
 
sfsuphysics said:
As shitty as it is, I think it'd be somewhat refreshing if the cable companies would just come out and say it

"We have absolutely no problems running things the way they are, but we see how wireless carriers are making money hand over fist using this model, and we just want to make a whole lot more money without having to spend any more money on our side"
Click to expand...

The two largest wireless carriers also have ISP divisions.
 
rufio said:
I pay $65 a month with a (newly enforced) 250GB cap on Cox. That's $0.26/GB. Based on these numbers the only way I don't consider metered usage digital-rape is if: A. You only use 10GB a month and only pay $2.60 for your service; B. You only use 10GB of your 'cap' and you get 240GB "roll-over" for later.
Click to expand...

Now this I could agree with :)

Since I dropped Netflix, I've only been using about 10GB-20GB the last couple months.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038095600 said:
Or they are anticipating streaming video services to completely dominate in the future, and expecting that in the future, bandwidth demands are going to be much higher...

Don't get me wrong, I don't put it above these slimy ISP creeps to publish bold faced lies, but they may actually not be doing so in this case.
Click to expand...

Thats the problem though, Caps don't have any effect on congestion. Having a 150gb cap doesn't stop everyone from getting home at 5pm and starting a Netflix movie. What they need to do to prevent congestion is actually use some of the billions of dollars we gave them for infrastructure improvements instead of corporate retreats.

When cars became more popular, the government didn't limit the amount of miles people could drive per month, they built more fucking roads.
 
Over the last 3 months I've averaged 2TB of bandwidth usage per month.

I'm on Time Warner and they have unlimited bandwidth and I haven't had any notification from them that I was using too much or anything.

I hope it remains this way.

Every year, data peering costs to the backbone go down significantly. It doesn't make sense to introduce more limitations as internet costs are going down.

http://drpeering.net/white-papers/Internet-Transit-Pricing-Historical-And-Projected.php
 
This will have the effect of chilling the online video business (on purpose) to drive people back to the cable operators.

If this isn't an illegal business practice I don't know what is.

Yet another reason we need Net Neutrality laws.
 
Imagine this gets put in place...lets see.. no HD YouTube, Rebirth of the local Blockbuster and Music Stores, Death of Netflix and iTunes store. Gotta pay for all that bandwidth you know. What will happen to Voice Over IP? This is like taking gun and shooting yourself in the leg.
 
nobody_here said:
It's shitty on two levels. For the consumers it would not be good, nor for the company selling the service. They would have a large amount of profits tied up in a small number of subscribers, not a sustainable situation......unless, they suddenly put low caps on the normal users, charging for overages, and then made the high users pay even more...

Right now is a terrible time to try to force price hikes down consumers throats. Look at the reaction from an $8 Netflix increase and a $5 BoA debit card charge.......now imagine if the cable industry came out and said, everyone's broadband is going up $10/mo and we are cutting the cap in half as well......

I don't see this happening.
Click to expand...

One word: Monopoly
 
hesho said:
welcome to canada....
Click to expand...

Oh God, this.

I pay $45/mo for Internet service and have a measly 60GB/mo cap. When I wasn't working I was breaking that cap every month. Now that I'm employed again I don't seem to be downloading as much.
 
DigitalGriffin said:
One word: Monopoly
Click to expand...
+1

I have no problem with a business trying to find alternative pricing models, etc., but without real competition it's a one sided contract negotiation. In a free market alternative pricing models could be accepted or rejected by the customers while still retaining access to a similar service through a competitor who operates under a different model.

These companies are in bed with out politicians for the "privileged" of having a monopoly.
 
wizdum said:
When cars became more popular, the government didn't limit the amount of miles people could drive per month, they built more fucking roads.
Click to expand...

Except out here in California.
The liberals out here decided in the 70's that if we didn't build any more roads, then people wouldn't come.
They came anyways, which is why we have some of the worse traffic in the country.
 
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